"Oh, Charlotte, Charlotte!"
he moaned, and his voice was drowned out by the manifold rustling of
the young birch leaves, as a human grief is overborne and carried out
of sight by the soft, resistless progress of nature.
Barney, although his faith in Charlotte had been as strong as any
man's should be in his promised wife, had now no doubt but this other
man had met with favor in her eyes. But he had no blame for her, nor
even any surprise at her want of constancy. He blamed the Lord, for
Charlotte as well as for himself. "If this hadn't happened she never
would have looked at any one else," he thought, and his thought had
the force of a blow against fate.
This Thomas Payne was the best match in the village; he was the
squire's son, good-looking, and college-educated. Barney had always
known that he fancied Charlotte, and had felt a certain triumph that
he had won her in the face of it. "You might have somebody that's a
good deal better off if you didn't have me," he said to her once, and
they both knew whom he meant. "I don't want anybody else," Charlotte
had replied, with her shy stateliness. Now Barney thought that she
had changed her mind; and why should she not? A girl ought to marry
if she could; he could not marry her himself, and should not expect
her to remain single all her life for his sake. Of course Charlotte
wanted to be married, like other women.
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